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Blog Day 130-133 Tues 13th-Fri 16th September 2011
The next 4 days may as well be summed up into the following:
Not getting up until anything between 11am-2pm our sleeping pattern seems to be really messed up & we can't get it on track, not that sleeping in a hostel that doesn't actually become silent until round 3am helps!
Wandering around the town & esplanade lagoon area which is really nice & generally chilling out, one day only leaving the hostel to pop to the shop for some supplies we were feeling that lazy!
Deciding how we want to get from Cairns to Melbourne & then Sydney, whether to book onto the Greyhound bus which is basically an unlimited hop on hop off bus just like we did in South Africa or whether we want to hire a camper van & drive it ourselves. We really want to go with the latter the only thing putting us of is the budget of money we have allocated for our time here. It is a lot more expensive here than we had first thought and this decision isn't one that's making itself for us. We have Sharne looking into it, playing one company of against another for us for the best deal.
Once we have sat down & worked it out, it looks like the two options almost break even, with petrol being the only thing that makes the campervan more expensive. As the hostels are full of Germans & French who, so far, are unwilling to communicate with anyone but their own & the sheer noise in the evenings and early hours, we tip in favour of the campervan. After all we are only going to get this opportunity once & what better way than to do it than our very own road trip.
Sharne managed to come up with a very good deal that included full insurance, a free table and chair kit and a solar shower! Wooooooooo! Spaceships is the company, and their campers are bright orange Toyota people carriers, which have been converted and include all the essentials plus a few extras. We are excited for our road trip to begin but we have to wait until Monday to pick it up. Because of this Sharne manages to throw in 3 free nights at the hostel we are staying at which is a real bonus & big saving for us.
We log ourselves onto the hostels internet ($9.95 for 25hrs instead of $4 per hour, you do the math!?), which gives us a chance to get some road trip songs downloaded to our iPod, do some research on places we would like to stop at along the coast & of course catching up on Skype with our lovely family of whom we are both really missing now. Crazy to think we are almost 5 months through our trip yet still not even half way. Trish also had a lovely phone call from Deb which was really nice as she hasn't heard from any of the girls for a while. It was good to have a good ol chit chat & catch up, a lot of things change in a year, in fact a lot of things have changed in 6 months. But Trish sends her love & regards to them all.
Having curry for 3 days on the trot only because the smallest pack of chicken we could get was so huge it has lasted 3 days & the curry sauces were on offer 3 for $5.50 a bargain we simply had to have. Who'd have thought we'd come to Oz & be living on rice & curry especially after coming from Thailand which by the way should really come here & try the Thai green curry it beats the socks of the crap they call Thai green curry!
And that pretty much sums up the last 4 days really, Cairns is a lovely place, really peaceful, laid back & easy going if only everywhere could be like this. It's good to be able to chill for a few days/weeks especially as it's the weekend 2morow & that means lots more rugby.
Blog Day 134 Sat 17th September 2011
Today starts with the usual getting up around midday ish, this will hopefully stop come Monday when we pick up our Camper van. Plan of action for this weekend of course is rugby world cup, pretty much the next few weekends will revolve around this. We've been in contact with Mike & Alex who we met the other day & have arranged to meet for dinner later on today while the rugby is on, it's around 3ish already so we head straight to Gillinghans a hostel/ bar by day & a hostel/party house by night. We watch the first half of South Africa vs Fiji but it's hard to keep your eyes on the screen when so many scantily clad women & toned torsod men are wandering around, the hostel has a beach area with a waterfall pool & far too many naked bodies. After the first half we go for a walk to PJ O'Brian's, a buzzing Irish bar, we order a drink before taking to a quiet little corner to watch the second half of the game. This isn't much better with all the barmaids getting ready for the big Ireland game by wearing low cut tops and the tightest bright green hot pants we have ever seen! After a S.A win we go to head back to Gillighans where we will soon be meeting Mike & Alex but, a crowd of people grab our attention. As we head towards it we find a street entertainer/busker performing sleight of hand magic. He goes by the name of Nick Nicholas. He is a little on the line with some of the one liners & things he's saying but is quite funny, especially when a group of intoxicated guys come up & start heckling. This is met with Nick threatening to come to their place of work and messing up their job…………….by ordering fries! This got a laugh and shut the goons up. Dan wants to hang around to watch see if his magic is any cop & it's clear this guy has a set routine he's been doing for the last 20 years! Once he had finished we went up to put some money in the hat & Dan shook his hand & had a quick chat. We head of again & meet Mike & Alex but the food in Gillighans doesn't look all that good, in fact we wouldn't even serve half of it to our dog (if we had a dog), so we go to the courthouse where we know we will be able to munch on pizza & have $3.50 coronas. Whilst we are catching up & talking campervan options Australia Vs Ireland is on the go in the background. A well-deserved even be it unexpected win to Ireland. Once we are gossiped out Mike & Alex kindly offer to show us the camper van that will be there home for the next 3 months or so. They kindly also give us a lift back to our hostel while they try to look out for places to camp for the night. Their camper looks pretty cool & we are now very excited to be picking ours up on Monday.
Blog Day 135 Sun 18th September 2011
First of all a very Happy Birthday to Lizzy, hope you have a lovely day, love from us both.
Today is an easy day, a filling brekkie burrito & coffee at the Lillypads & a trip to see Sharne. She is really excited to tell us that the group sales and marketing manager for Nomad is in Cairns & is staying in the same hostel as us for 2 weeks while the usual manager is away. She is the one lady that Sharne has been trying to hook us up with as she will hopefully be able to help us out with accommodation all the way down the east coast with the possibility of future business with Dan's dad. So Sharne gets her dialling fingers to work & soon we are to meet this Renee in the morning after we pick up our campervan. The afternoon see's us once again sitting in the Courthouse with a couple of $3.50 coronas watching Wales vs Samoa followed by England vs Georgia. We head back to the hostel after this to watch France vs Canada. Still stuffed from the huge burrito we decide to munch on a couple of Naan breads that we have left for dinner. We see a lady at the end of the bar who seems to be dressed for authority in this place. We think that this must be Renee. After finding out that it is Dan takes a stroll over & introduces himself. No sooner have we said hello, and Renee has two drinks ordered for us and has signed us up to the quiz. Renee introduces us to her friends Jamieson and Anthony. The drinks start flowing & we all get on spectacularly well even managing to claim second place in the quiz. Dan pulls out a couple of card tricks & soon enough the night draws to a close. We arrange to still catch up with Renee in the morning for a proper discussion, and Jamieson tells us to look him up if we get down to Townsville.
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